Today’s post comes from marketing whiz Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

Wow!

I’m just back from a 9 day car trip through Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Illinois, and boy, is my butt tired!

There are some big states on that list, and it takes a lot of sitting to get through them. Good thing meetings are my business, because my hindquarters were already road-ready before I left!

Along the way, I had lots of time to think about the coming transportation revolution, when autonomous cars will do most or all of the driving for us. Different states will write different laws to govern this, but my guess is that in most places our job as the “driver” will have some very basic elements:

• Don’t be drunk
• Don’t be asleep

Mostly, summer road trips of the future will expand the boredom of the back seat to the entire car, since your only real job will be to sit and watch the scenery go by.

Are there marketing opportunities there? You bet!

When we kicked this around at The Meeting That Never Ends, everybody agreed that backseat car games are due for a renaissance.

In the self-driving car future, everybody will be able to give all their attention to classics like 20 Questions, I Spy, and License Plate Poker.

But once the “driver” is able to swivel her seat and face the backseat passengers as the car picks its own way through road construction around Wisconsin Dells, we predict there will be a whole slew of new games the group can play, including card games and board games.

All we have to do is figure out what the breakaway hit will be in the realm of Whole Family Backseat Car Games, design it, own it, and then wait for technology to catch up.

Any ideas?